• Crystal Palace, London Circuit Races

    ‘If you can race at Palace you can race anywhere’ – I was told that when I first got involved in cycle sport in London. Crystal Palace is a park in the south London borough of Bromley which was once the home of the Crystal Palace, the star of the Great Exhibition held during 1851… Continue Reading

  • Cyclo Cross at and abandoned Velodromes

    When so many years ago Good Friday Track Meeting promoter Graham Bristow organised a cyclo cross race at Herne Hill Velodrome in London approximately 25 people turned up for what was quite good fun. Since then cyclo cross has become British Cycling’s largest growing cycle race discipline and this is mirrored across the world including… Continue Reading

  • Lost Velodromes – dash for cash

    English Victorian’s seem to have invented everything, whether this is true is debatable, but what we can say for sure is that they were mad on sport. Historian Christopher Hill described it as the ‘World Turned Upside Down’ – the period when the UK moved from an agrarian economy to being one of manufacture and… Continue Reading

  • I found a velodrome, but didn’t, but I did….

    London is full of seemingly forgotten stories that can come alive if you have an enquiring mind and if you look beyond the obvious. Whilst I was hunting for a lost Victorian velodrome in east London I came across a rather nice mural painted close to where the velodromes northern banking would have been. Looking… Continue Reading